


poignancy and catharsis

by EzzyAlpha



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abusive Parents, Angst, Badmouthing Sylvia Plath In An Unnecessary Act of Teen Rebellion, Drama, Drowning, F/F, Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Kind of a mess honestly, Sibling Incest, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 05:26:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9477524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EzzyAlpha/pseuds/EzzyAlpha
Summary: Roxy is going away to college at the end of the summer. Rose struggles with things she can never admit.





	1. track one - shower hymns

Roxy wishes she could like poetry. Verses and lines across white, meanings one would have to infer. Metaphors on metaphors. Dust to dust. Smart people like poetry. Roxy likes going out on Friday nights, hitting the clubs with her high school friends and getting smashed. She doesn’t think she likes any of them, but she needs them to like her. She’s popular in a way only looks, money and a need to please will get you. 

On that regard, she wishes she would have stuck to the violin like her sister did. Roxy can’t carry a tune in a liquor bottle. There’s something beautiful in the notes that seep through her walls, far too late at night. Roxy could complain, but she doesn’t want to. It’s her only company when she can’t sleep. Sometimes, she almost works up the courage to walk out into the hall, knock on wood, Rose’s door in its pristine glory compared to the mess of stickers that is Roxy’s.

Roxy’s stockings get caught in the bush. There’s twigs in her hair and leaves tickling at her exposed sides. Maybe she shouldn’t have worn a crop top, knowing she would have to trek back to the house. Of course none of her friends would want to drive up to the house, and Roxy wouldn’t want to make a big deal out of it. It’s easy enough to get lost in the woods. Roxy’s Converse snap twigs and crunch leaves, following the path of her childhood adventures. The house peaks over the trees, a white monolith. Rose’s window is alight.

Rose, with her bright eyes and dead stare, is the perfect foil to Roxy. In a lesser existence, a teenage movie from the 90’s, things might be different. Roxy perhaps in a fuzzy sweater and plaid skirt, Rose in combat boots, chokers and flannel. As it is, Roxy wears crop tops and floral sneakers. Rose might wear oversized sweaters and thigh highs, but when she’s home, and she’s home a lot, she’s usually in a hoodie and pajama pants. Roxy makes a mental note to buy her a choker.

Rose is waiting by the window when Roxy pushes past the last set of trees and shrubbery, feet uneasy on the pathway over the river. Just as soon as she does, the sunlight breaks through the trees, bathing the forest in amber. With a smirk and a cigarette in her fingers, Rose leans out, the burning of her cigarette the same shade as the sky is quickly becoming.

“But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Roxanne is the sun.”

Roxy snorts in laughter. “Forsooth!”

Rose hangs out the window, propping her head up on her hand. “It is my lady, Oh, it is my love! Oh, that she knew she were! She speaks yet she says nothing. What of that?”

Roxy hesitates under her window, wavering under her own height. In the sunrise, Rose is beautiful, gold washing upon her features, gold leaf on a cold, metal statue that Roxy can never reach. A gargoyle looking down at her with a wicked smirk and wickeder words.

“...Forsooth!” Roxy speaks, mirroring Rose’s smirk with a goofy grin.

“How drunk are you?”

“Surprisingly, not enough.” Roxy brushes her bangs off her face, a sigh escaping her. “Mom’s gonna catch you.”

“Mom’s not home and I have an ashtray. Come up, the door’s unlocked.”

Perhaps, today, when the violin strings start sounding, Roxy will lift her tired body off the bed and cross the threshold into the hallway. Then, she will knock. Rose will let her in, unlike herself.

For now, Roxy walks that tired body up the stairs and into the bathroom. She needs a shower. The crop top is abandoned, the stockings are done for and end up in the trash. Warm water is almost as appreciated as Rose’s visage as she broke through the trees. The warmth in Roxy’s stomach simmers hotter than the boiler could ever be. She gives in to thoughts of Rose, sharing a moment in the shower that she never could with the real thing, the fabrication in her mind enough to tide her over. She’s less than subtle, even with the sound of rushing water.

When she retreats to her cove of pink and wizards, she lets herself fall into bed. It was a long night with people she didn’t like and shots she shouldn’t have downed. That night, the violin doesn’t sound through the thin wall that separates her bed from Rose’s. Roxy misses a chance that she wouldn’t have taken.


	2. track 2 - stitches

Rose thinks in metaphors. She thinks like one might write, a glorious hymn some days, a rushed AP English assignment others. Right now, she’s writing a romance drama, a sorrowful event of poignancy and catharsis. Eat your fucking heart out, Sylvia Plath, you dead bitch. 

Rose’s romance drama, she decides, her fingers picking apart a hole in her blanket, will not have a happy ending. Rose doesn’t like happy endings. It turns good, relatable drama into meaningless feel good shlock. How can she like happy endings when she knows she won’t ever have one.

Oh joy, brought upon me, leave this place  
Your presence is not welcome here  
Your visage haunts me, for you are not real  
I’ve done everything to deserve such disgrace  
A cuss, a cut, a slip, a sneer  
I’ve done everything to appear so dull

Rose exhales.

She has killed Roxy in her mind time and time again. Not with a bang, but with a word, Rose ends this, ends her, and then, returns to the bang and ends herself. Her mother would be none the wiser, her sister would be left alone with the peace of mind Rose’s final words provided.

What stitches, Rose has, she thinks. What cuts she has been through. What marks it has left.

Rose jumps at the sound of the front door closing. She sits up, staring at her own door, her protection against the cruel word outside. The only cruelty allowed here is her own. Her mother’s words, Roxy’s remarks, the vibrations shaking the air but shaking the world underneath her feet as well. Rose crawls under the ratty blanket and wraps her pillow around her head. Maybe she will suffocate, she thinks, maybe she doesn’t have to live with her cracked ribs, cracked from a heavy beating heart every time she knows she’s not alone in the house anymore.

Mom goes quiet, but Rose can almost hear the sound of ice clinking on glass, glass clinking on marble. Roxy’s footsteps rise up the stairs, stop, and her door closes as well. The only protection against the needless cruelty of others is to be alone.

Rose relaxes, as much as she can. She holds her violin as tightly as the tightness in her chest. Her fingers are trembling but she rosins her bow with care. 

She is as delicate as she isn’t. 

Rose wonders if Roxy is listening. Her attempts to reach out have always had a wall between them, but they’re true, and practiced. Perhaps she is waiting for a sign, a hint, anything that would tell her she’s reaching her. Perhaps Rose doesn’t want to move past this, into the great, terrifying unknown.  
Her fingers blistered, and eyes heavy, Rose stops. She doesn’t sleep; she sits, waiting for the sun to rise over the tree lines, for the sounds of her mother leaving the house and the SUV disappearing into the trees. Rose is quiet, thoughtful.

The door beside hers opens. Footsteps, a pause outside her door, and back again. Roxy’s door closes with a click.

The unknown is terrifying, Rose thinks, before exhaustion overtakes her,

**Author's Note:**

> thought you saw the last of me fuckers


End file.
